WEEKLY TRUST FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2002
More of positive actions
Wada Nas
Two actions recently taken by the Obasanjo
administration deserve some level
of commendation, particularly if they could be sustained. The first is the
appointment of deputy inspectors general of police, and the second the
putting to an end IMF meddling in our economy.
For a very long time, there has been popular and sustained outcry against
what people saw rightly or wrongly as discrimination in presidential key
appointments. The Igbos were the first to complain over the appointment of
their own into the National Security Council, command appointments in the
military and police. Their complaints were never without justification.
Because of the nature of our society and polity, based as it were on some
balancing acts, key appointments have come to be appreciated as instruments
for achieving this objective, i.e. national cohesion. It was on this
ground
that the Senate in its wisdom rejected the president's nominee for the
position of Auditor General of the Federation. The distinguished senators
noted that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, the Accountant General of the
Federation, AGF, the outgoing Auditors General of the Federation, NITEL,
NDIC among others are all headed by people from the same ethnic group in
addition to the position of the Minister of State for Finance, the Chairman,
Petroleum Pricing Committee and such other vital economic institutions.
Prior to the creation of the positions for DIGs, of the six AIGS at head
office, three were of the same ethnic group in charge of the most strategic
positions in the force. And of the eight AIGs in charge of zonal commands,
six belong to the same ethnic group, as the three AIGs at the headquarters.
Of the six strategic services, the Army Navy, Air Force, Police, SSS and
NIA, only one, the Air Force, is being headed by a Northerner. It is the
same thing at divisional command level; only one of the five divisions of
the Army, the Lagos Garrison is being headed by a Northerner. Of the three
Air Officers Commanding, AOC, of the Air Force, one is under the leadership
of a Northerner and none in the Navy strategic staff appointments and
various commandants are almost the same. A commentator once observed that in
his first ministerial appointments, which has not changed drastically, where
a minister from the president's part of the country was not in charge, a
minister of state or a director general from the same area was in place. And
if not, a special adviser on the affairs of such a ministry operates from
Aso Rock.
This is why the recent appointment of AIGs, one from each zone, is a step in
the right direction. It is a small but yet significant step towards the
fulfilment of the relevant provision of file constitution, which demand that
key appointments should reflect the federal character.
The task ahead of the president now is to extend this to other services as
much as possible without upsetting hierarchical order of the services. One
approach is to allow the North retain the position of the Comptroller
General of Prisons after the retirement of Alhaji Jarma in July. This is so
because if we add up the three paramilitary services to the six already
listed, the total Northern share is three out of six. And so if the prison
is denied the region, it would end up with only two out of nine, Customs and
air force. This would widen the disparity for worse. Where a section of the
polity is in control of the civil service, the political machinery, the
military, the police and other security and intelligence services and the
economy, as prevailing in this country today, we can realistically talk of a
balanced federation and the polity cannot but endure in bitter grievances
and feelings of alienation as is currently the case. This is part of the
reasons for the current bitterness in the land. It is therefore inspiring
that Mr President has taken the first step by addressing the visible
imbalance at the top hierarchy of the police force. This would only be
complete when he addresses the same issue in other services and the polity
entirely. I believed that Mr President would feel painfully diminished if
other entities in the polity see him as promoting a narrow minded ethnic
interest, which he was never known for in the past. Tremendous glory would
accrue to him should he take the bold step to address such transparently
glaring lopsidedness in nearly all the major and key appointments made so
far.
Next is his bold effort in telling the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the
western agency that has been sapping, almost to the bones, the economies of
developing polities, to get off the back of Nigeria. This a victory for
people like Professor Sam Aluko, who has been telling whoever cares to
listen that the fund has never aided the growth of the economy of any
developing country.
Here is an agency that claims to be interested in the good economic welfare
of the people but has consistently and persistently been against measures
that would improve the living standard of the people. It has been opposed to
capital budgets through which the welfare of the people could be improved.
In the 2001 budget, for example, the National Assembly earmarked N500
million for projects in each senatorial district. It is understood that
government could not implement it following unwarranted pressures from the
Fund and these projects were meant to uplift the living standard of the
people. An agency that discourages the provision of water, roads, health
facilities, schools and such basic needs of the rural poor, a people where
government mean nothing to them, since it does very little to cater for
their basic needs, cannot but be described as an anti-people agency out to
ensure their continued suffering in squalor. In short, IMF has been
encouraging developing countries to pursue policies aimed at worsening the
economic welfare of the people. In no area is this more visible than its
policy of staff retrenchment and its encouragement of the auctioning of
public property to a few rich western capitalists and their domestic
collaborators in the name of globalisation and privatisation. While it has
been encouraging us to sell our common property to these class of the super
rich, it has not at the same time been encouraging developed nations to
allow poor countries purchase their own public property. It has been a
master-servant relation against our common and collective interest.
At the rate the Obasanjo administration has been going in its determination
to auction our public property, cynics have concluded that if he gets a
second term, perhaps even Aso Rock would be auctioned at the end of the day.
No country in history has ever gone out whole hog to pursue a policy of
complete capitalist agenda as Nigeria under this regime, on the
encouragement and support of the IMF such that our only national hospital in
Abuja has since been given out on auction rent. It has been a policy of
pauperising the people, creating bitterness within the polity as it has been
going hand in hand with unemployment, another policy pursuit of the fund.
It has been a complete 'IMFarisation' of the Nigerian economy and indeed
polity under the directives of the IMF, with Nigerian citizens the worse for
it.
Because of lack of activities in the economy following the fund's
discouragement of capital and development projects, unemployment has reached
the rooftops, the consequences of which have been numerous and various cases
of societal deviations; robbery, communal violence, prostitution and the
like. In this part of the globe, our energetic and educated youth see IMF as
an agency for the encouragement of unemployment and poverty.
Worse, it has reduced our currency to the worse valueless level. Before
Babangida's economic experts, led by Falae and Professor Aboyade, accepted
the SAP policy in 1986, the naira was just four or so to the dollar. Today,
it is in the region of N140. During the regime of Abacha, the very head of
state that called off their bluff, for which the western world hated him, it
was N82 to the dollar throughout his period. When they found in Obasanjo a
playing mate and a good companion, so to speak, it is now hovering in the
region of N140 again. We here see the IMF as a fund for the destruction of
the currencies of developing economies.
And here comes the worst. According to President Obasanjo, our total loan
profile has been six billion dollars out of which we paid 13 billion, with a
balance of 30 billion remaining in the name of so-called interests and
penalties for alleged default. When some of us talk of who stole or has been
stealing Nigeria's money, we have never looked the way of the IMF and its
creditor partners on whose behalf it has been pursuing policies of
pauperisation of the economies of developing countries. No theft is greater
than paying a total of 19 billion on a loan of six billion and with 30
billion still outstanding. This is how our money has been stolen by western
creditors and their IMF agency.
But we are entitled to ask the question: Is the government sincere in what
it told us? Has it really discontinued with the supervisory role of the
fund? Is it not doing so for the purpose of 2003, only to reverse to the old
order after catching our votes again? I do not want to join those who insist
that this government cannot be trusted and taken for its words, as it has
never fulfilled any of the several promises it has been making to the good
suffering people of Nigeria. However, I remain a witness to generally broken
promises since 1999 and by the glaring attempt to secure a second term at
all cost. It is therefore difficult to disbelieve these cynics who are
insisting that the action is part of the eye on 2003. Since this government
has been spending billions of our money, without the knowledge of our
accredited representatives; US 850 million to NITEL, N12 billion to Berger,
N3 billion for ministers' quarters and several others, what reasons have we
to believe that a wool is not being pulled over our eyes so that the more
they do, the less they tell us?
However, let us be optimistic that the action was indeed sincere and would
be sustained for which reason therefore we cannot but commend it. It is good
for our people, good for our economy and excellent for our sovereignty. But
that is if they are truly sincere and honest about it. We sincerely hope
they are.